someone posted this and i thought of you :)

i will never understand why it was anglicized as "princess mononoke." mononoke isn't even a surname in japan.

/sperg

Simply to make it palatable and easier to market here in the West. The same answer for almost every change to any imported anime....

Jess, I admit to having never seen theis one. Is it a good watch for someone not totally immersed in Anime? I like the Ghost in the Shell and Patlabor type things.

i will never understand why it was anglicized as "princess mononoke." mononoke isn't even a surname in japan.

/sperg
Because it's Japanese name is "もののけ姫" which translates to "Mononoke-hime" which is literally, "Princess Mononoke." So, unusually enough, it is an exact translation.
It's not a Japanese surname because she was named by wolves.
JonC

No, it's not literally Princess Mononoke. Mononoke is not literally Mononoke just like Hime is not literally Hime. Hime is literally Princess and Mononoke is literally Ghost. It's not an exact translation at all, it's a half translation and should really be Ghost Princess, but like Amanda said, including Japanese in the title made it more marketable to silly Americans who wanted to watch something Japanese. Also, もののけ姫 doesn't *translate* to Mononoke-hime. もののけ姫 *is* Mononoke-hime. もののけ姫 *translates* to Ghost Princess.

By the way, I despise anime shows and thought that this movie was lovely, so that should say something about its caliber.

By the way, I despise anime shows and thought that this movie was lovely, so that should say something about its caliber.

Nope, but it says something about you. ;)

I stand corrected.
JonC

YAY a thread for me <^____________^>

I've never seen this anime but i likes the pic. I'm not a very big anime watcher :P

Even if you're not a big anime watcher like me, it's still a great movie. Especially if you like giant wolves. :P Not just Jessie, but everyone should watch it. Spirited Away is also very good.

the best ghibli movie is called "only yesterday".

"Mononoke" is referred to ancient japanese culture. Mononoke was actually the meaning of possessed person, or demonic person. Which is why in the movie she is a demonic creature, seen by the humans. Mononoke does not really mean Ghost. But more stupid is that really old words of japanese are getting different meanings nowadays. Obake means Ghost. Yurei is another form of ghost. Japanese have a lot of names for a lot different kinds of ghosts. Not just japanese, asians in general. Asia has a really rich folklore in horror stories. Being "Mononoke" a kind of a specific demon/ghost.
So yes!! The title of the movie makes all sense if you know old japanese culture enough to get it.

i learned about mononoke from watching the show called mononoke. i just thought it was funny that only the -hime was translated and the untranslatable part was used as a surname. it was probably just miramax's doing, as the titles in the disney distributed ones were localized much more literally.

brap brap